Mission

"Morning, Geto!"

First thing that morning, Satoru Gojo slung an arm around Suguru Geto's shoulders and grinned impishly at him.

"So? Remembered those youthful days the four of us spent together yet?"

"What are you talking about, Gojo?"

Suguru Geto smiled faintly, then continued.

"I was born into an ordinary family. My parents were both ordinary people with no cursed energy...

I'd only just awakened Cursed Spirit Manipulation when you were in school." (Note: these are false memories following his memory loss.)

He still hadn't remembered...

Looking at Suguru Geto's face, Satoru Gojo couldn't help feeling a surge of irritation. That bastard Kenjaku. I swear I'll...

Outwardly, though, he kept grinning. "I've dug up some gossip lately. Want to hear it?"

"Gojo, if you dare tell anyone, you're dead!"

An icy female voice reached Satoru Gojo's ears, making him flinch.

Satoru Gojo hurried behind Suguru Geto and looked at Shoko's frosty expression. Clearly, she'd heard him mentioning his supposed gossip.

"Shoko, haha, what brings you here again...?"

Satoru Gojo scratched his head awkwardly, privately wondering what was going on. Shoko was usually either drinking in her office or texting Ze. How did she have time to come to the classroom?

"If I hadn't come, someone would probably tell everyone he met, wouldn't he?"

Shoko glared at Satoru Gojo, then turned to Suguru Geto. "Geto, Ze sent me a text. He specifically requested that you handle this."

"Huh?" Satoru Gojo protested. "Why didn't he tell me?"

"Because you never check your phone?"

Satoru Gojo: "..."

Now that she mentioned it, ever since he'd gone a whole day without replying to Ze's message, Ze generally came straight to Jujutsu High to discuss things in person.

"Zenin?"

Suguru Geto paused. In his current memories, the man was rather aloof. Why would he suddenly seek him out?

"This is..."

Suguru Geto read the message on Shoko's phone, then smiled gently. "I understand."

"What is it? What is it...? Let me see too!"

Satoru Gojo leaned over and read the message on her phone, immediately losing interest. "Oh, it's something like that?"

"Definitely better to leave it to Geto."

"Your job is to hold down the fort at Jujutsu High and protect Tokyo, you arrogant idiot!"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Satoru Gojo waved dismissively.

In a village in the forests on the outskirts of Osaka Prefecture.

"How could this happen...?" Suguru Geto stared blankly at the bloody scene before him, his fists clenching.

The man's head and limbs had been chopped off. His corpse was mangled, and blood stained the entire house.

"Mr. Geto, this..." A bespectacled man beside Suguru Geto said steadily, "This cursed spirit has probably reached the upper ranks of special grade, hasn't it?"

"You're right, Ijichi."

Suguru Geto narrowed his eyes slightly and crouched to examine the lingering cursed energy residue. "We don't know what its cursed technique does yet, but I doubt it's weak."

The man beside him was Kiyotaka Ijichi, an assistant supervisor at Tokyo Jujutsu High.

"Just put up a Curtain and leave."

Suguru Geto spoke calmly as a crawling cursed spirit with one body and two heads emerged from a black hole behind him.

"This cursed spirit seems to have developed some intelligence."

"I don't know whether it's a dietary preference, but it likes devouring women. You might not be in danger if you stayed here, but..."

"You must be joking." Ijichi smiled awkwardly, though inwardly he couldn't help reflecting that Mr. Geto really was far more reliable than Mr. Gojo.

Come to think of it, he'd never met that Mr. Zenin.

The strongest jujutsu sorcerer of the modern age... and the one reputed within Jujutsu High to be the most dependable of its strongest trio.

"Emerge from darkness, blacker than darkness. Purify that which is impure."

Ijichi held his middle and index fingers together beside his mouth and murmured. A black, curtain-like barrier descended from overhead, enveloping the entire surrounding area.

"I'll head on ahead, Ijichi."

Suguru Geto followed the cursed spirit he'd summoned. "Oh? You've already picked up its scent?"

Suguru Geto gradually made his way deeper into the forest, increasingly sensing the cursed spirit's growing presence.

Before long, he slowed.

"A palace?"

Suguru Geto's pupils contracted, a suspicion forming in his mind. "Could that thing be...?"

Suddenly, a tentacle lashed toward Suguru Geto as though it had appeared out of thin air.

Suguru Geto quickly leaped aside, a black-and-red three-section staff appearing in his hand.

The special grade cursed tool-Playful Cloud!

Ze Zenin had given it to him. Suguru Geto had tried to refuse for quite some time, but finally accepted it after Satoru Gojo practically forced it on him. Since then, though, he'd grown increasingly comfortable using it.

The cursed spirit was soon sniffed out by Suguru Geto's tracking spirit. Suguru Geto charged toward it, joined by the rush of a three-eyed, ox-shaped cursed spirit behind him.

Unlike Ze Zenin's Piercing Ox shikigami, who could only charge in a straight line, Suguru Geto's cursed spirit could launch physics-defying charges over varying distances and adjust its force accordingly.

Still, its ultimate damage depended on his own cursed energy reserves.

The four-tentacled cursed spirit hurriedly dodged the ox-shaped spirit's charge, then swiftly lashed out with its tentacles. Three struck toward Suguru Geto's ox-shaped spirit, while one tried to block Suguru Geto's approach.

"Just one?" Suguru Geto looked at it in disbelief. "Aren't you underestimating me a little too much?"

At Suguru Geto's mental command, the ox-shaped spirit pushed off in midair, dodging the tentacles in an instant. At the same time, three cuttlefish cursed spirits he had specially reinforced with cursed energy shot toward the tentacles, pinning them firmly to tree trunks.

The cursed spirit thrashed its enormous body, trying to break free of those powerful "nails," and let out a deafening roar.

"Your dying scream?" Suguru Geto swung Playful Cloud, knocking aside the tentacle in front of his face, and reached the tentacled cursed spirit effortlessly. He extended a hand, and the spirit quickly distorted, gradually turning into an orb.

"..."

Suguru Geto fell silent for a moment, then swallowed the orb before him in one gulp.

It was the same familiar taste. He'd lost count of how many times he'd swallowed this revolting flavor. Why did he keep going?

Faintly, a voice flickered through Suguru Geto's mind. "He who wears the crown must bear its weight..."

"Great power comes with a price, Geto. You have to keep going. We'll always be by your side..."

"Who was that?"

Suguru Geto held his head, a slight headache setting in. These inexplicable words kept flashing through his mind.

Putting those thoughts aside, Suguru Geto continued toward the palace. The bloody sights along the way only made him more certain that this was the cursed spirit's lair.

Suguru Geto looked at the gates before him, then pushed them open and entered without the slightest hesitation.